Housing looking strong

There are more signs the housing market is strengthening.

Thursday, September 27th 2001, 7:06AM

As with the figures for sales of existing houses, the latest house building consent figures indicate a much stronger housing market after confusing signals in June and July.

The figures show the number of new housing consents rose to 2,020 in August from 1,690 in July. It’s the first time consents have exceeded 2,000 since May 2000.

The seasonally adjusted figures were also strong, showing a 14.2% increase in August from July. The July figures showed a 10.4% decrease from June. Statistics New Zealand says its series often records large monthly fluctuations so one shouldn’t read too much into an individual month’s figures.

The August total consents were worth $301.4 million compared with $264.5 million in July.

Apartment activity also appears to be gathering pace. The 444 apartment consents worth $34.8 million was the highest total in one month since August 1999. Only 194 apartment consents were issued in July.

The government statistician says August consents increased in 13 of the 16 regions it measures compared with August last year and that Wellington experienced the highest number of consents at 307 since the series began in November 1998. The Wellington increase was driven by apartment consents.

In the year ended August, there were 19,583 new dwellings worth $2.92 billion approved, down from 22,630 worth $3.17 billion in the previous year.

The number of apartments approved in the latest year was 2,356 worth $203.9 million, down from 3,016 worth $248.5 million in the previous year.